The past few episodes of “Sherlock” have certainly not held anything back, given that we’ve seen our title character battle his demons, be saved by Mary Watson and the expense of her own life, and fall victim to all sorts of torment at the hands of Culverton Smith. Also, there’s going to be so much more coming his way in “The Final Problem” this coming weekend courtesy of the latest Euros Holmes shocker.

You would think that all of these notable moments would lead to some substantial ratings for the BBC series, and instead, what we’re seeing is a little bit of a decline. “The Lying Detective” on Sunday drew 6 million viewers across the UK in terms of live data, which is the lowest rating that the series has received in the four seasons that it’s been on the air.

Are there some external factors impacting this? Sure, with the biggest one being simply that this is 2017, and as a result of that, ratings expectations are different than they were even three years ago when season 3 came on the air. There are fewer people actually watching live TV, as evidenced by the fact that “The Lying Detective” actually drew a higher audience share than the previously-lowest-rated episode in the history of the show all the way back in season 1. There are just fewer people watching live TV than there used to be, even if there are more people as a whole watching via other means.

With that latter statement in mind, the easiest assumption to make here is that ratings for this episode are going to surge in the consolidated ratings after the fact, which will include people catching on the BBC iPlayer and other devices. Regardless of what the ratings for the show, don’t expect this to have any impact at all on whether or not the show is ultimately renewed for another season; that seems to be very much based on however much time the cast and creators have in their schedule.

What do you make of the falling live ratings for “Sherlock”? Let us know in the comments, and head over here to see the promo for the “Sherlock” finale in the event you haven’t seen it already. (Photo: BBC.)